Riya Patel is a London-based writer and curator specialised in architecture and design. She was formerly the senior editor at Icon magazine, and as a freelancer her words have appeared in FRAME, Crafts, Design Anthology, Wallpaper* and Disegno. Until 2019 she was curator at The Aram Gallery, an independent platform for new and experimental design. She started her career at The Architectural Review and Architects’ Journal and holds a Masters degree in architecture.

My selection is all about spaces of making and manufacturing in this incredible city. Through my time writing about architecture, design and most recently craft, these often-hidden spaces have been revealing themselves to me – pockets of activity that thrive on industrial estates, down alleyways, in railway arches. Carmel King and Mark Brearley’s book Made in London (2022) is a good primer for this extraordinary ‘other life’ of the capital that tourists, shoppers and even architecture-lovers don’t see. It’s easy to get romantic about this topic, but the reality is many places are struggling to survive in an expensive city and against a prevailing culture of buying imported products. I hope my collection inspires more people to find out what’s made on their doorstep.